Dataset: Absolute Mobility, Air Pollution, and Demographic Characteristics of 70,185 US Census Tracts  

This dataset merges neighborhood-level data from multiple sources to explore the relationship between absolute intergenerational mobility, environmental exposure, and socio-demographic characteristics across 70,185 U.S. Census tracts. The data are harmonized at the 2010 Census tract level.  

	•	Educational attainment and household income  
	•	Racial and ethnic composition  
	•	Population density and poverty  
	•	Climate and air quality  
	•	Absolute mobility (Opportunity Atlas)  

Variable Name, Description  
fips: 11-digit FIPS code identifying a specific census tract. It is comprised of the 2-digit State FIPS Code, the 3-digit County FIPS Code, and the 6-digit tract code  
frac_coll_plus2000:	Share of adults with a college degree or more (2000 Census)    
med_hhinc1990:	Median household income (1990 Census)  
popdensity2000:	Population per square mile (2000 Census)  
poor_share1990:	Share of residents below poverty line (1990 Census)  
share_black2000:	Share of population identifying as Black (2000 Census)  
share_white2000:	Share of population identifying as non-Hispanic White (2000 Census)  
share_hisp2000:	Share of population identifying as Hispanic (2000 Census)  
share_asian2000:	Share of population identifying as Asian (2000 Census)  
emp2000:	Employment rate for working-age adults (2000 Census)  
census_region	: U.S. Census Bureau region (1–4; Northeast, Midwest, South, West)  
mean_winter_prcp:	Average winter precipitation (Daymet)  
mean_winter_tmin:	Average winter minimum temperature (Daymet)  
mean_summer_prcp:	Average summer precipitation (Daymet)  
mean_summer_tmax:	Average summer maximum temperature (Daymet)  
kfr_pooled_pooled_p25:	Absolute upward mobility: household income rank at age 35 for children born to parents at 25th income percentile (all races/genders combined)  
pm25_1982:	Annual average PM2.5 concentration in 1982  
pm25_1990:	Annual average PM2.5 concentration in 1990  
pm25_2000:	Annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2000  
pm25_2010:	Annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2010  
state:	Two-letter state abbreviation  
county_state:	County name and state abbreviation (e.g., "Cook_IL")  

Data Sources & Citations  
	•	Chetty et al. (2018) — The Opportunity Atlas, https://opportunityinsights.org/data/  
	•	U.S. Census Bureau / ACS – Demographic & socioeconomic variables (1990, 2000)  
	•	Colmer, Voorheis, and Williams (2022) — PM2.5 Estimates, https://www.colorado.edu/economics/sites/default/files/attached-files/colmer.pdf  
	•	Daymet (2023) — Gridded Meteorological Data, https://daymet.ornl.gov/getdata
Geographic Coverage  
	•	Units: U.S. Census tracts (2010 boundaries)  
	•	Coverage: 70,185 tracts across the contiguous U.S.  

Recommended Citations  
	•	Chetty, R., Friedman, J., Hendren, N., Jones, M. R., & Porter, S. R. (2018). The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility. https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/atlas_paper.pdf  
	•	Colmer, J., Voorheis, J., & Williams, B. (2022). Air Pollution and Economic Mobility in the United States. https://www.colorado.edu/economics/sites/default/files/attached-files/colmer.pdf.  
	•	Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. https://daymet.ornl.gov  

File Format  
	•	Format: Parquet  
	•	Rows: 70,185 (one per Census tract)  
	•	Columns: 21  
	•	Encoding: UTF-8  
